We have previously been at Palm's HQ and have seen the handset live that everonye is talking about. This is Palm Pré. Since it has been announced no one has been interested in Palm's financial loss from last year, no one is talking about the company being close to bankruptcy, Pré seems to be such a cool handset (and it is) that success is guaranteed. And Palm's name means again uniqueness and innovation.
Pré is impressive from close as well. They didn't tell us much about its processor, but it's a Texas Instruments CPU (?), and we have seen it with our own eyes how fast it is. The handset supports multitouch technology (this is why they are fighting with Apple), the QWERTY keyboard slides from the bottom and it can be charged wireless as well.
We will show you a longer video of the handset in function, as this is the point. The operating system is called WebOS and it's completely different than anything you've seen before. It's a real multitasking system, it didn't lag a bit when a couple of browser windows, a calendar and multimedia applications have been open. We can instantly change between apps with a finger and if we want to close something we just have to flip up the screenshot of the application and that's it.
Hirdetés
It's a simply fantastic idea that in the screen's bottom row there is always a row free and here we can have notifications (new email, SMS, etc.), which don't have any impact on the currently running application, but the user can still see what is happenning in the background. Images and websites can be zoomed just like on the iPhone: it's fast, it's simple, it's great. Of course the handset has a gyroscope which rotates the image instantly, while the wireless charger (called Touchstone) is freaking spectacular.
A magnet pulls the phone on the small charger, covered in rubber, and charging starts immediately. I've tried this, if I touch the Touchstone I won't get any electrical shock, but if the phone is placed on it and there is an incoming call then we can answer it by taking the phone off the charger. And if we put the phone back during the call the handsfree is turned on. The Touchstone is an optional accessory, it is sold separately.
webOS is an open platform, Palm released the SDK, so from now on applications can be developed for it. It will probably be a successful platform, but the default software set seems to be good as well. Two downsides have been revealed: on one hand this handset also has only limited Bluetooth functionality, we cannot transfer files, even though it is version 2.1. The second surprise is that although the camera's resolution is 5 megapixels andhas autofocus, it cannot record videos. The phone has GPS, but of course nothing has been told about the navigation software.
We are highly anticipating the European launch of Pré, as after the presentation we have left their booth and upon observing the i-mate stand we could only say muhaha. And we could tell this about almost every Windows Mobile handset.
Translated by Szaszati
